Length of Written Narrations

[Nealewill]

My youngest is quite the writer. I have noticed that his year, when we do our written narrations, she makes sure to fill the page (sometimes the back) when writing her narrations. I think they are pretty good for her age and much better than her siblings when compared with her age. I have debated on having her make them shorter since she seems to just write and write. But when she reads the narrations, there doesn't seem to be too much fluff. They seem to be long and decently descript IMHO. Would you make your child stick with the 3-5 sentences or would you allow it to be longer? My advice a few years ago would have been have the child work on shortening them. But as time as come on and because my middle child struggles to write along with my oldest always writing the bare minimum, I hesitate at this point to discourage length. Thoughts?

For example - here is here latest written narration (and keep in mind it was written by an 8 year old) written from Haman's perspective, unit 13:

When Esther was queen of Persia, Haman was a very close friend to King Xerxes. Esther came to the king and told him to come to a dinner that she had prepared for him and to bring Haman with him. When they go there, they ate dinner together. Haman decided to leave. He saw that Mordecai was not bowing. He complained to his wife and said to her, "Why can I not have all the power I want?" He built a gallows and planned to kill the Israelites. When he found out that Queen Esther was a person he planned to kill, he was terrified. When King Xerxes found out, he killed him on that same gallows.

I do know there are some things I could obviously have her change but I don't want to tear her down either. So...would you have her limit the length or not worry about it?

[MelInKansas]

I like her narration. I think probably in the guide you're in, the reason it says 3-5 sentences is to encourage MORE length. In CTC I think is where it talks about summary narration versus a narration with more details. Once that is being specified I would say you should try to teach and emphasize the skill of summarizing more, rather than including so many details. But in the early narrations, where the writing of it is new, even as it says in the instructions in the back, you kind of focus on one thing at a time rather than having to make it "perfect" right away. Let them grow into the skill. And again, I think you go back to the point of what they are doing - it's to make sure they remember the key points and can create sentences that make sense. It sure seems like she is doing that (and I would have been thrilled with a narration like that from either of my two who are old enough to do written narrations).

[StephanieU]

One thing I notice with my daughter in Preparing, is that when the narration is about a story she is familiar with and she enjoys, her narrations are often longer than 3-5 sentences. There are simply lots of things she knows, and she wants to include the full story. If it isn't biblical history or is something she is bored with (like this week with Jesus dying on the cross), her narrations are shorter. So I don't worry when her narrations are long occasionally.

[Nealewill]

I never did reply to both of you - I go SO busy recently. I am sure you both are busy too with holidays and kids and life LOL.

Thanks for your comments. I usually over focus on rules rather than why the rule is there LOL. I will let her continue to write longer if she wants to so long as the narration is good and she isn't just adding stuff to make it longer.